


[Makios Fic] Dishonored

by doitsuki



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen, netherlight temple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 09:59:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13610985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doitsuki/pseuds/doitsuki
Summary: Makios gets stripped of his title and rank for his crimes.





	[Makios Fic] Dishonored

The familiar spires of Dalaran materialized before Makios’s dull gaze, his hearthstone clutched in a shaking fist.

 _‘At least you’re not dead.’_ he told himself, remembering his attorney’s final words. _‘Be grateful for that. Be grateful… for that.’_

 ** _‘Why? What is your life without your title? What are you without your rank?’_** He needed no cursed artifacts to whisper in his ear – his conscience was already roasting him as it did on a frequent basis. Makios shook his head, tangled blonde curls snagging the edges of his pauldrons.

_‘Shut up. Shut up, Light, please. I have to go to the Temple and sort things out.’_

**_‘There’s no sorting to be done, you fool. Take your shame head on and-’_** Makios stumbled, his thoughts falling to dust as he bumped into a mage. One of very high rank too, judging by their gaudy outfit.

“Watch where you’re going, goat.” they snapped, before blinking past him in a whoosh of arcane energy. It was then that Makios hurried to the Greyfang Enclave, thoughts be damned as he had _things to do_. Or rather, a scolding to receive. Through the upstairs portal he went, ending up in the Netherlight Temple after a disorienting moment through space and time.

The moment he laid eyes upon the place –Shadow to the left, Light to the right – he realized that more than just the portal guards were watching him. There in the center of the temple stood Alonsus Faol, various other officials at his sides. Makios recognized them all – humans, mostly, but a few Draenei he’d spoken to at some point in the past ten thousand years. There was no sign of the Prophet, thankfully, as Makios owed his life to Velen and would rather be skinned alive than debased before him. But it was Velen more than anyone who understood that all was not perfect and pure in the Light – not after the recent events with Xe’ra.

“So,” Alonsus began, folding his bony fingers together. “We heard from your Exarch…”

“Bishop, please.” Makios stepped forth, wringing his hands. “Please, don’t do this.”

“G- ahm. Makios, control yourself. You know what it is you’ve done.” The Bishop tried to look compassionate, he really did, but his undead features simply twisted into a disconcerting grimace. “After much deliberation…”

“There was no deliberation! You decided that just now!” Makios snapped, wildly gesturing with his hands out to his sides. After keeping his composure for four hours straight with his life in the balance, he could no longer hold himself together. “I beg of you, reconsider. Please.”

“Your actions in this very movement prove you thoroughly undeserving of any further mercy, Makios! You should be grateful-”

“ ** _STOP IT!”_** Makios cut a swathe through the air, fingers clawed as his form loomed in growing shadows. “I know! I know! Oh, yes, I should be grateful, I should be quiet, I should be sorry, this, that, aagh!” His Common began failing him as his breath came shallow, choked, chest uncomfortably tight. “You can’t. You can’t. Twenty-five _thousand_ years I’ve served the Light-”

“And yet you let the Shadows toy with you as if you were a mere acolyte!” Alonsus retorted, glancing to a few of the gathered priests behind him. “No offense.” Turning back to Makios, he folded his arms. “Just look at you, the very picture of corrupted ignorance. You could be an example to us all, of what happens when one grows too confident in their own power without the strength of will to harness it.”

“Strength of will? You know _nothing_ of the things I’ve had to do!” He was baring his teeth now, Makios’s tail swishing erratically behind him like a snake with its head cut. “Don’t do this to me…!”

“Brother.” Now another walked up beside Alonsus, a Draenei Grand Anchorite the likes of which Makios had been for many, many years. He spoke in their tongue, gaze unwavering. “We do not hold a thing against you. It is merely a matter of you requiring more training in the Shadows if you are to walk the path of the righteous.”

Makios drew breath to interrupt but was silenced, magically so.

“The Old Gods are powerful on Azeroth. They are drawn to us. You must learn to resist their influence if you are to hold any sort of rank among us – or we cannot trust you to remain sane.”

“Half of you aren’t as sane as you pretend to be.” Makios growled, flexing his fingers and unconsciously drawing dark energies towards him.

“And that is why half of us are still acolytes, sir.” said a very bold night elf, shrinking away as Makios’s cold gaze fell upon her. “Eep.”

“You are hereby stripped of your rank and title, ‘Grand Anchorite’.” Alonsus clasped his hands together, rubbing them a bit. “And if you wish to set foot – er, hoof – among us again, you will undertake a disciplinary training program headed by none other than Gesslar here.” He gestured to the Draenei who’d stepped up and Gesslar dipped his horned head, veil fluttering.

“Knowledge is power.” said Gesslar, giving a light shrug. “Or something like that.”

“Urgh.” A sickness of sorts coiled within Makios’s core, and he felt as if a thousand worms writhed in his lungs, crawled through his veins. Scratching at the back of one hand, he shook his head. “Do as you will,” he grunted, too weary for any more platitudes. He turned on his hoof and left, shoulders hunched and ears drooping.

Alonsus sighed heavily, running his fingers back through his sparse brown hair. “Light above, he acts like a child.”

Gesslar kept quiet on that, despite all he knew of the former Grand Anchorite’s history. Some things were better unsaid. When they came to Makios, most.


End file.
